I know I’m bragging, but I’m so proud of all of them. Imagine what it’s like to work with such a great group of young adults, and to wake up and read powerful messages like the following on a regular basis. This is from a 27 year old Army Special Forces Medical Sergeant, Ryan Kraeger, a cradle Catholic homeschool graduate stationed on the West Coast. His website is The Man Who Would Be Knight and he blogs here.

But you must read his latest, Hunger and Thirst. Please go read the whole thing, as a commenter said, it will stay with you for the rest of your life. I pray that priests who uphold the teaching of the Church are allowed to remain in service to our armed forces.

And God? God is the Sun! God is the boiling furnace of a thousand times a thousand suns, a blazing inferno (pun intended) of desire for me. God is the Love that exists from all eternity, Love that loved me into existence, Love that loves me into love with the Triune Love.

This is why I go to Communion! Not because I am so in love with God, but because He is eternally in love with me.

As of this writing I am facing the prospect of a very long time in a desert where there are no priests. At first this panicked me, but now I am at peace with it. The God who has worked so hard to bring me to Him (despite my best efforts to the contrary at times) will not abandon me. If it is His will to starve me for a year, or for the rest of my life, then starvation is what is best for me.

What saddens me, though, is the number of people who starve themselves…

4 Responses to Army Special Forces Medical Sergeant Writes About the Eucharist

Thank you for sharing this – wonderful insight, especially about those who “starve themselves”. This makes me think about the Good Friday meditations on the last words of Christ, and how priests often preach about social justice in reference to “I thirst”. Would be nice to talk about the dimension of spiritual hunger than the author writes about – how many Catholics (and Christians) willingly starve themselves.